Today’s been one of those days that has at times felt like neither one thing or another, and at the same time has been productive. There’s even been a few insights along the way. We’ve just finished the Summer Reading Challenge at the library, following a two month frenzy of acting as traffic control for children and families with varying degrees of enthusiasm (both for them and us). With a full house of staff for once, I was able to concentrate on taking down all the promotional material, as well as the charts and interactive displays used to track the readers’ progress. I don’t think I’d quite appreciated how much I’d put up around the place until I saw how bare the walls, doors and windows suddenly looked.

It’s amazing how quickly such things blend into the background, and aren’t readily acknowledged until suddenly they’re gone. Now the challenge will be to see what the next displays to fill all that space will be. Or rather, it will be someone else’s challenge: Lady P is returning to work after an extended illness, and will be given the job of setting up displays as part of her phased return to work. I’m kind of looking forward to stepping back into the background for a while on that front.

Keep Calm and Use the Konami Code

We’ve not seen much of her in her illness, and I think she’s the first to admit she’s still on the road to recovery. One of the insights it has given me has been a reminder of how frustrating I must be when I retreat into myself when I’m on a low ebb or actually unwell. It’s almost certainly a significant factor behind how much I try and make up for it with the people in my life – and in accordance with the “if you spot it, you got it” principle, it is much more noticeable to me when people around me go quiet. So my challenge to myself is to adopt the F**k It approach and not let myself obsess and catastrophise while still keeping channels open.

Sounds easy doesn’t it? It’s up there with trust falls and letting someone order for you at the bar.

Still, it is a trust that my Monday gamers extend to me every week when they enter the arena and try to double guess what direction the narrative is going. This week was a good example of one of our more freeform sessions. It almost qualified as downtime after the horrendous traumas of their recent exploits, and introduced a new area of operations. So new, in fact, that I had to draw a map on the fly in our virtual space. It worked reasonably well, so that was reassuring to know that as and when they go totally off piste to areas I haven’t expected, I’ll be able to fudge it.